Jim writes:

> 1.      We used to run LaserJet IIs off of our DTC's and they always
>  produced an extra page at the end of a print job.  Actually, as I
>  recall they would leave the form feed light on and the next print job
>  would eject the blank page at the start.  However I could be wrong on
>  this.

I can't say anything about LJII's. They're before my time :-).

(More truthfully, during that time, we were using Apple LaserWriters
exclusively. There was just no comparison in the quality of the printers at
the time. Unfortunately, the Apple LW's were two to three thousand dollars
more expensive then -- and that is the sole reason that HP now dominates the
laser printing world. Quality, no matter how much better something might be,
never wins out over price -- Atmar's First Law of Gross Consumerism.)


>  2.      We now run the same LaserJet IIs off of external JetDirect boxes
>  as HP3000 networked printers and reports printed from the HP spooler
>  still generate the extra blank page.

That surprises me.


>  3.      These same LaserJets are slaved to our NT server as networked
>  printers, and when used to produce a print job from any of our
>  workstations (NT4 and Win2000Pro) they do not produce an extra page.

That doesn't surprise me.


>  4.      We experience the exactly same behaviour on our LaserJet 4s and
>  4Pluses. Further, on the Lj4 and 4+s, this occurs whether we have PS
>  emulation (the hardware kind with the HP plug in chip set) enabled or
>  not.

This truly surprises me. So much so that I just ran some tests with our
network-connected LJ4M Plus, printing in both PostScript and plain ASCII
(PCL).

Everything works just fine. No blank pages are created in either language,
nor does the printer go into any form of timeout, indicating that additional
material is coming down the line.

Our NPCONFIG file looks like this (and it's the same on all of our networked
HP3000's; they all print to the same printers, using the same NPCONFIG file):

:print npconfig.pub.sys
global (message_interval = 60
        banner_trailer = FALSE
        pjl_supported = FALSE
        jam_recovery = FALSE)

6      (network_address = 192.168.1.100)

300    (network_address = 192.168.1.100)

301    (network_address = 192.168.1.110)

302    (network_address = 192.168.1.120)

303    (network_address = 192.168.1.130)

304    (network_address = 192.168.1.140)

305    (network_address = 192.168.1.150)

306    (network_address = 192.168.1.100
        pjl_supported = TRUE)

   Device 6, 300, and 306 (all the same IP address) is an HP LJ4000.
   Device 301 is a LJ4M Plus.
   Device 302 is a Tektronix Phaser 560 color laser w/ external JetDirect.
   Device 303 is a Seiko Color Point printer w/ external JetDirect.
   Device 304 is shared between an HP755CM Large Format printer and an Apple
LaserWriter 630 fax printer, w/ external JetDirect.
   Device 305 is currently unused.

The LJ4000 supports PS2, PCL6, and PJL and is set in auto-personality mode.
The LJ4M Plus supports PS2, PCL5, and PJL and is set in auto-personality
mode. The Seiko ColorPoint supports only PS1 and has no idea about PCL or
PJL. The HP755CM supports PS2, HPG/L, HPG/L2, HP RTL, and PJL, but not PCL.
The Apple LaserWriter 630 supports PS2 and an ancient version of PCL, but not
PJL. The Tektronix Color Laser supports on PS2 and has no idea about PCL or
PJL.

All of these devices now work perfectly. No blank pages. And immediate
responses from all of the printers when using network printing from the
HP3000, indeed far better than from the PCs and the Macs.


>  5.      We recently upgraded two of the LaserJet IIs to LaserJet 2100Ms.
>  The new units DO NOT produce the extra page from either the HP
>  spooler or the NT Print Server.  The upgrade was a straight swap.  We
>  simply moved the cable ends from the LjII to the 2100M.  No
>  configuration changes we made anywhere.
>
>  What all this means I don't know; but I suspect that the problem
>  resides on the HP3000 and not in the printers.

Lars' suggestion yesterday of trying to put together a new TTUTIL file is an
excellent one, with the FF character suppressed or substituted. I can't
remember if we ever tried that (although I believe we actually spent a fair
amount of time doing exactly that at one time, but senility being what it is,
I wouldn't swear to anything). Unfortunately, we no longer have any DTCs
connected to any of our HP3000s, so I can't easily test Lars' suggestion
without going to a fair amount of work.

Wirt Atmar